1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to encoding of a digital television signal and, more specifically, relates to a procedure for the digital encoding of the chrominance and luminance components of quadrature modulated color video signals.
2. Background of the Invention
It is known from the "Journal of the SMPTE", Volume 85, March 1976, Pages 141-145, that color video signals can be closed coded or separately encoded. In the case of closed coding, the composite analog color video signal is first amplitude scanned and subsequently converted into a sequence of digital code words in accordance with the scanned amplitude values. In the case of separate coding, as is involved in the present invention, the color video signal is split into the two analog signal components, luminance and chrominance, of the color video signal and these are then digitalized separately. With the separate coding procedure, analog color video signals of any compatible color television standards, for example, PAL and SECAM, can be converted into digital signals which are compatible with each other.